FEBRUARY, 2009

Dear Friends!

We thank God for your love, prayers, support, and interest in our ministry! Our winter has been very exciting. The School of Ministry is continuing, the church is developing, our thrust is on evangelism, and Jesus keeps saving and healing today. We are inspired and would like to share with you what God is doing here in Russia and Estonia.

ESTONIA

Thank you for your prayers for our seminar in Estonia. We took our Russian worship team and two StreetCry evangelists along with us. More than 70 people attended the 3-day seminar on evangelism. That is a pretty good turnout for people who come to hear how they can get out of their comfort zones and win souls to Christ at work, school and on the streets. In the middle of the conference, the Lord brought a young man to the door of the church who had just been released that day from prison. He was seeking help, and we praised God that He brought him to us at this time. We stopped the conference, and loved on this young man, and as we laid hands on him and prayed, he began weeping uncontrollably at God's tangible love and concern. The pastor purchased a ticket for him to go to a rehab center, and after a mix-up and night in a shelter in a city half way across Estonia, Sara, Gosha, Mike and I went to the town to find him and help him. We had spoken about leaving the 99 to rescue the one during the seminar, and we were very happy to go and help this man get into a rehab center. He is now safe, settled in and doing well.

We also went to a methadone treatment center across the street from the church that none of the church members had previously visited. Several people were prayed for there. We were invited back for follow-up on troubled teens and addicts 5 days later. Gosha, the head of evangelism in our ministry, went there on his birthday, leading seven young people to Jesus. We are seeing more and more how much there is to do here in Estonia!

EVANGELISM, SALVATION and HEALING TESTIMONIES

Our School of Ministry graduates Yura Bugakov and Gleb Kolpakov in conjunction with a Christian shelter for street children (the children they minister to come to Sunday School services to our church) organized several evangelism concerts in two jails for juvenile delinquents. Teenage criminals are our toughest audience but Jesus helped to find keys to their hearts. The presence of the Holy Spirit was very strong. The ones who mocked in the beginning melted by the end of the program and came up for personal conversations. More than two hundred young criminals who heard powerful testimonies of salvation and deliverance from drugs from the people, who once were in their place, received New Testaments and Gospel tracts. We are praying that God would continue to work in their hearts and transform their lives.

We met Oleg (in the picture with Gosha - Oleg is on the right) a couple of years ago through his friend Volodya, a member of a Baptist church. Volodya’s church invited us to hold seminars on evangelism and work with the young people. At the time, Volodya studied in St. Petersburg and lived in a dorm. Oleg was his roommate and a stubborn rejecter of the Gospel that Volodya kept trying to share with him. Volodya asked if we could help him to reach out to Oleg. Gosha volunteered and visited them in their dorm. Thus, the friendship of Gosha and Oleg began, and as a result, Oleg came to Christ and repented rather quickly. After he repented, his girlfriend branded him as a religious fanatic and was throwing fits every time he attempted to come to our church. The battle went on for a year - Oleg was torn between his desire to know Jesus more and his girlfriend. Finally, Jesus had first place. Oleg began regularly coming to fellowship this year. At one of the recent services, he was baptized in the Holy Spirit. In addition, God miraculously touched and healed his broken hand. In one of our services, during worship a word of knowledge was given by a School of Ministry student that there is a person in the audience who broke his hand and God wanted to heal it. Oleg immediately responded because he was in pain from his broken hand. The doctors had said they did all they could but Oleg still lived in constant pain and he dreaded handshakes. The inability to greet people properly bothered him even more than physical pain as he is a very sociable and friendly guy and handshaking is still the way to greet everyone you meet here in Russia. After laying hands and prayer for his hand the pain was instantly gone and his hand was completely restored to all the functions previously lost! Oleg could not hold his joy - he came to the front and testified to the whole church of the wonderful thing Jesus did for him!

Galya is a new girl in our drug rehab center. She came from Murmansk. Jesus is revealing His love to her and Galya is testifying:

“Very recently I got to know the One who loved me all along. He did not turn me away when I came just like I was. Jesus! Before I thought that God maybe existed somewhere, but He was very distant and disinterested. Talk of God helping a person, much less healing from a sickness sounded very funny to me. I believed in medicine and in doctors prescribing the medicine. For the past ten years, I have been taking both pills to relieve headache and nose decongestant drops. A day did not pass without me taking these pills and drops. The doses grew and grew. I went to the pharmacy and bought these things by packs. If the medicine ended and I did not have the money to buy new I suffered from fits of nervousness, I could not properly breathe, eat or sleep. I consulted the doctors but they only advised to replace these pills and drops by others, stronger and more expensive and did not give any guarantee that it would help. Since I came to the rehab center I heard a lot of talk that Jesus heals and even medically proven testimonies of Him healing people from sickness as serious as hepatitis C. At first I did not believe that God really did that - I thought that it happened because of some other yet undiscovered reason. However, the ministers in the rehab center offered prayer for my health problems. I agreed, even without much faith on my part in a good outcome. They prayed for me several times, then I began praying myself asking the Lord to set me free from the addiction to these pills and drops. Then I forgot about it and only several weeks later I realized that I had not had any headaches for a long time even though I was not taking the pills daily any longer. Moreover, my nose breathes normally without any drops. Now I believe in God’s power to heal. It took Him several days what the medicine could not do in ten years. He sends His word and heals us and delivers us from our destructions as it says in Psalms 107:20”.

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: KOSTYA PROTASOV

Kostya is 26, currently in the second year of our School of Ministry and is one of the leading evangelists in our church. Here is his story:

“My name is Kostya and I was typical of my generation. Drug user, consumer, egoist - “for me, mine, me, myself and I” - were the words describing my life credo. Since I turned 13, my motto was “Take from life everything that it has to offer!” Together with my friends I partied, went to discos, drank, smoked, used hash, etc… every day purposed to discover and experience something new. I fell in love with the most beautiful girl in our class and - like in a fairy tale - she became mine. We modeled our lives according to the latest Hollywood movies, only we were the main characters.

In the summer of 1997, I went to visit my friend in Voronezh region (south of Russia). All summer we used hash and poppy that grew everywhere - we smoked, boiled and whatever… When I returned to the city after 3 months of this, I had a feeling that I had lost my brain! A year later, we started using heroin. It became the latest trend and was easily obtainable - sold everywhere, the drug dealers’ business was booming. They gave free samples, then gave on credit saying “pay whenever you have money”. Among my peers, using heroin was considered mega cool. They said that the word “heroin” is derived from the word “hero” and was used by the soldiers in the American army to be real fighters! And we really thought that using it makes us fearless and unbeatable! We got addicted very fast. At first we only sniffed and smoked it, but searching for new feelings we soon began to shoot, not noticing where we crossed the dangerous line. This was even though we previously had contempt on the shooters, considering them outcasts of society. The time of free dozes was over and the dealers became very tough, but still we needed to feed our habit every day. It took a lot of money. My brother (a drug addict too) and I resorted to crime: stealing, robbing and extortion. Soon my brother ended up in prison. I began selling heroin and became very good at it. I had connections where I could buy heroin for cheap but sell for huge profit. This way I not only supported my habit and made my living but also in a months time I could buy things for which my parents used to work and save for years. Such financial independence inspired me! My girlfriend though broke up with me as soon as she found out that I was shooting heroin. My grades at technical school left much to be desired but I did not fear to be kicked out - in the future I saw myself as a big drug dealer, and gangster like in American movies.

Soon my inner condition began conflicting with this my perspective on life. I began feeling very alone and in need of care and attention. I tried to stop heroin but discovered that I could not stop. Soon I felt very disappointed in life. My brother came out of prison and a social worker from Finland named Paul was ascribed to us in order to prevent us from further crime making. He was very nice and looked like he genuinely wanted to help us. He took us to different psychologists and social care organizations. Finally, with his help in August of 1999 I ended up in a TUHE (goddess of destiny) camp. It was an experimental camp organized in order to help pagan drug addicts. It was situated in a forest. We were about 10 campers. We lived in abandoned houses - no chance to contact people on the outside. We worshipped the god of the forest, sacrificed to him, smoked, drank, fornicated, and were allowed to do whatever but drugs. There I was introduced to the works of Carlos Castaneda.

I attended that camp for 3 summers in a row. But every time I came home I was back on drugs. My brother was in prison again. I returned to drug dealing. This time I used ephedrine. Again, it seemed like this is it - the thing I was looking for all along! And how come we did not do ephedrine before?! Maybe we would not have experienced the disappointment that heroin brought into our lives! It seemed to me that I rediscovered life! I began to be interested in literature, philosophy, music, all kinds of arts! It seemed like my brain started working in a new way. I did not sleep for weeks. When I got tired, I had to use heroin to counteract the effects of ephedrine. Now I had new “teachers” - we all wanted to be like Che Guevara, etc… Soon though I began experiencing horrible fits of depression at the times when my high was over. The end result of ephedrine was the same as heroin.

To make a long story short I tried whatever there was to try in order to fill the inner void and compensate for loneliness. Unsuccessfully. And back on drugs I was - at least they relieved the pain. I did not like to be the Castaneda type of warrior any longer. I was very weak - hepatitis C and HIV positive. In June of 2006, my best friend and “teacher” died as the result of this life style. On his grave, I swore to stop using drugs. However, I could not!

In July I myself ended up in hospital in a critical condition but continued shooting even there so that the doctors were about to kick me out. Then a leaflet called “You have a chance!” was given to me (StreetCry evangelism tract for drug addicts). It had information about a rehab center for drug addicts. I did not see how I could continue in the way I was going so I decided to try this center. When I arrived there I was shocked - over a hundred drug addicts from the different places in Russia and CIS were peacefully coexisting together! How come they did not kill each other? What is holding them here? Everyday we were all on a strict schedule including a lot of work and unrealistic rules like no smoking, no cussing, no alcohol, no girls, etc… At the same time, there was a lot of talking about God’s love, about Jesus, His sacrifice on the cross, hell, forgiveness of sins, etc… All these words sounded very strange to me. After one week, I decided that I could not take it anymore and wanted to go home. The rehab center workers gave me and one more guy who wanted to leave (he was from Murmansk - north of Russia) a ride to the closest train station where we could get trains home. They left and we stayed waiting for our trains. As I waited, the pictures of my empty past and dreary future filled my mind and I heard the voice in my heart saying: “Go back to the center lest you die!” Going back to the center was 8 kilometers through the forest and my bag that I had to carry but somehow I made a decision to go back. I went through the forest and felt the presence of God! His mercy, His tremendous love overwhelmed me! I thought of many of my friends who in their “search of truth” and trying different things in life did not reach the most important - Jesus and His Word that really sets free. When I arrived back to the center the peace that surpasses all understanding was radiating from my whole being. I knew - I had found what I was looking for all along! I prayed and asked God for forgiveness of all my sins, for all my past life because an acute realization of my sinfulness filled my soul. I realized how disobedient I was. Since then my life started to restore little by little. God began to fill my inner vacuum with Himself. I started reading the Bible and understanding what was written in it. God restored my memory - I learned by heart Bible verses and was able to quote them in spite of the fact that just a while ago I could not remember what I did yesterday. One of the center workers told me: when a man takes one step towards God, God takes ten steps towards him! The hunger to know Jesus burnt in my heart, the desire to live in fellowship with Him. He met me in so many ways and the things that were impossible for me before became possible! I once was lost in sin, but Jesus took me in and set me free from the chains of addictions!”

PRAYER POINTS FOR FEBRUARY

• Please pray for our School of Ministry - our goal is to continue raising up more evangelists, pastors, teachers, prophets, apostles and ministers in all the gifts of the Holy Spirit
• For fruitful evangelism during the winter season - we want to make the most of all the opportunities God gives us to touch as many lives as possible with the Gospel
• For the home group to continue developing in the student dorm
• For spiritual growth of the girls currently in rehab and the Lord’s grace and anointing for the staff to effectively minister to them and to further develop our rehabilitation program
• For physical and spiritual protection for the entire church and ministry
• Unity, love and wisdom for the leadership team
• For direction, anointing and grace in the pioneering work in the neighboring nation of Estonia
• For a breakthrough with an abundant supply of finances for the advancement of the Kingdom of God here.
• We have debt, but are continuing to press on in spite of the difficulties. Please pray specifically for $35,000 to cover debt. Thanks so much!

Thank you again so very much for your prayers and continued support of our work! If you are not doing so already we would like to ask you to prayerfully consider helping us on a regular basis. Your help is much needed and highly appreciated!

God bless and keep you all,
Your StreetCry family